Letters to the Editor: Feels like a funeral

I considered returning to Storm Lake to celebrate the Fourth of July this year but it seems wrong. Now the flag stands for protecting billionaire pedophiles, throwing children into concentration camps, murdering nurses and mothers in the streets and bombing schools. It feels like a funeral.

John Christensen, Omaha, Neb.

Vote to stop the crazy

If we are supposedly the most powerful nation on earth, then this midterm election in November is the most important thing you will do in your life. Because it is not “We the People,” it is “I the Dictator” will do what I want. “I the Dictator” don’t care about inflation or the people and just feed my ego. I will start a war with a nation that has a choke point on oil and try to convince you it was about something else.  That “Drill baby drill” really worked, didn’t it?

Republicans have been setting this up for years, starting with Citizens United to get unlimited what I call bribe money.  Then stacked and I think paid off the Supreme Court so they will reinterpret the law and throw out precedent. Protect the rich and forget the rest. Well, the rest of us outnumber them!

Plato said “The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” People you have to WAKE UP and vote Democrats who care about you and healthcare and prices and democracy. Congress is the only check and balance we have left and is exactly why our forefathers made it that way.

July 4 is the 250th year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence but the first protest was on Dec. 16, 1773, the Boston Tea Party and hostilities started then. We finally won the war with the British April 19, 1783, after years of fighting. Did the lives lost then and in WWI and WWII mean nothing? Republicans are trying everything they can to stop your vote by restrictions and gerrymandering, because they don’t want to hear from you because they don’t care about you, just their jobs. 

We can stop the craziness with a Blue Tsunami in November that shows that “We the People” matter!

Dave Haynes, Duncombe

Questioning Lahn’s run

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy speaks lovingly of Kansas, saying, “There’s no place like home.” Because Zach Lahn appears to spend more time in Kansas than in Iowa, people are questioning where his home really is.

My concern is with Lahn’s connection and loyalty to Kansas-based Koch Industries, the second largest privately-held U.S. company. In 2005, Koch Industries created and funded a libertarian political arm called Americans for Prosperity, which opposes environmental regulations, Obamacare, raising the minimum wage, Medicaid expansion and government intervention generally. Lahn has worked for AFP in several positions and now runs a Koch-funded private school in Wichita.

In 2024, Koch Ag bought the Wever, Iowa, fertilizer company built in 2017 with massive tax breaks and development incentives on the premise new suppliers would increase competition and lower prices.

Because Koch Ag already owned one Iowa fertilizer plant, their $3.6 billion purchase was opposed vigorously.

The National Farmers’ Union argued the purchase increased Koch’s market power and ability to raise prices.

I could see no record that Zach Lahn raised any objections. You might ask why would he?

The purchase was recent and now Candidate Lahn argues vigorously against Big Ag. His website says he’s for “out-of-state ownership restrictions” and for directing tax credits to “Iowa-based companies with deep community roots.”

So I wonder about Lahn’s heart. Is he an Iowan opposed to Big Ag dominated by out-of-state corporations or is he still loyal to the Kansas Koch conglomerate that keeps accruing power and opposes regulation of its growth? I suspect it’s the latter.

Sue Ravenscroft, Ames